344 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



LESSONS 



ETHNOLOGY. VI. 



THE AMERICAN RACE. 



ARCHAEOLOGISTS have proved that the American continent 

 must have been inhabited from a more remote period of anti- 

 quity than was once believed ; and probably it was by the 

 ancestors of the Red Indians, now so extensively diffused over 

 the New World. Though called Indians, of course they have 



.no clearly traceable affinity to Brahman Aryans, or even to the 

 low caste Turanians of Hindostan. It is no misnomer to term 

 them red, for that is their 

 prevailing colour. At the 

 eame time it must be remem- 

 bered that various other hues 

 occur among them, from the 

 white seen in some tribes oc- 

 cupying cold mountain re- 

 gions, to the black which cha- 

 racterises those dwelling in 

 the hot and arid parts of 



t California. 



The aboriginal inhabitants 

 of the American continent 

 resolve themselves into two 

 divisions the Esquimaux 

 and the Americans proper 

 (Fig. 7). The Esquimaux in- 

 habit Labrador, Greenland, 

 and other parts of North 

 America either bordering 

 on or actually extending 

 within the Arctic circle. 

 Nay, more, they are found on 

 the Asiatic as well as the 

 American side of Behring 

 Strait. The name Esquimaux 

 is said to be a native Indian 

 one, signifying "eaters of raw 

 fish." The people so desig- 

 nated are in physical appear- 

 ance like the Asiatic Mongo- 

 lians. They have small eyes ; 

 their noses but slightly pro- 

 ject ; their faces are broad 

 and flat, with the cheek-bones 

 high; their hair is long, 

 coarse in texture, and black in 

 colour; they have naturally 

 scanty beards, and make them 

 yet more so by rooting the 

 hairs out. In language they 

 decidedly approach the Ame- 

 rican Red men, and not the 

 Asiatic Mongols. It is, there- 

 fore, leas easy than it other- 

 wise would be to answer the 

 question whether the original 

 seat of the Esquimaux was 

 Asia or America. If bodily 

 conformation be allowed to 

 decide, then the response will 

 be Asia; if, on the con- 

 trary, language be made the 

 determining consideration, the reply will be America. This 

 latter we think the correct answer. If the Esquimaux be 

 mitted, then the other natives of the Transatlantic continent 

 are of one physical type. Morton, the founder of the American 

 school of ethnology, says, "All possess alike the long, lank, 

 black hair, the brown or cinnamon-coloured skin, the heavy 

 brow, the dull and sleepy eye, the full and compressed lips, and 

 the salient but dilated nose. The forehead is lower than in any 

 other race of men, but in some instances this is compensated 

 by its breadth ; the eyes are deeply sunk in the head ; the 

 nose, though not quite aquiline, yet so far tends to that type as 

 to be decidedly arched." 



The languages of the American Red .men are of a very pecu- 

 liar character. Speaking broadly, they are agglutinate ; but root 

 is so added on to root that quite a multiplicity of ideas may 



Fig. 8. TYPE OF NEGRO OF NEW CALEDONIA. 



be expressed by one complex word. An American philologist 

 of French descent, Du Ponceau, has applied to this structure 

 the term now generally adopted, poly synthetic (from TTO\V, pol'-u ; 

 in English, poly, meaning much; and <rvv6e<rts, sun -the' -sis ; 

 in English, synthesis, a putting together). The term poly- 

 synthetic means that a large number of ideas are concentrated 

 into one word. Prichard, among other examples, gives the 

 following one taken from Heckw^lder the missionary : " The 

 Lenni Lenape (a branch of the Algonquin tribe of Indians) 

 express by one word, and that not a very long one, the phrase, 



' Come with the canoe, and 

 take us across the river.' The 

 word is nadholineen. The 

 first syllable, nad, is derived 

 from the word naten, to fetch : 

 the second, hoi, is put for 

 amochol, a boat or canoe ; 

 ineen is the verbal termination 

 meaning us, as in milineen, 

 ' give us.' The simple ideas 

 expressed by these fragments 

 of words are, fetch in canoe 

 - MS; but its usual accepta- 

 tion is, ' Come and fetch us 

 across the river with a 

 canoe." 



So far as is known, all 

 the Indian languages that 

 of the Esquimaux included 

 from Greenland to Cape 

 Horn, are polysynthetic ; so 

 also, as we have already 

 stated, is the Basque of the 

 Pyrenees. Hence it is gens- 

 rally believed that all the 

 American Indians, unless per- 

 haps the Esquimaux, are of 

 one race. Nevertheless, they 

 now speak a great multi- 

 tude of distinct languages, 

 if we judge not by their 

 common polysynthetic struc- 

 ture, but by their diversity of 

 roots. 



The popular belief as to the 

 mental and moral characteris- 

 tics of the American Red men 

 was founded at first on the 

 narratives of settlers, who 

 knew no " Indians " except 

 the Algonquins and Iroquois 

 of the eastern parts of the 

 United States and Canada. In 

 reality there are great differ- 

 ences among them, varying" 

 from the untamable hunters 

 of tale-writers to the compa- 

 ratively civilised Mexicans 

 and Peruvians, who when first 

 discovered were found to be 

 acquainted with astronomy, 

 and to have framed for them- 

 selves a calendar which would 

 bear favourable comparison with that of the ancient Romans. 



THE NEGROSS AND OTHER AFRICAN RACES. 



It is convenient for ethnological purposes to suppose Africa 

 divided into two great regions the first comprising the Barbary 

 States, Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia ; and the second, the 

 whole remaining portion of the continent. In the middle and 

 lower part of the valley watered by the Nile, as well as in the 

 wide expanse of territory lying between the Mediterranean and 

 the Sahara, the physical aspect of the dominant races, and in- 

 deed of the inhabitants generally, is more or less unequivocally 

 Caucasian, while in other parts of Africa the type of structure 

 met with is predominantly negro. 



It is difficult to classify the first-mentioned group of nations. 

 Time was when the Coptic or Egyptian language was held 



